Summer Business Immersion Experience Offers Opportunity

by Howard W. Hewitt

February 4, 2005

Learning about business from a textbook, from real businessmen, and in
the actual workplace is a unique educational experience available to
Wabash College students.

An intensive eight-week business course is gearing up for its second
summer at the College. The summer Business Immersion Experience is
funded by a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant and successful because of the
contributions of several Wabash alumni.

"It’s a course that’s not a course," said Nancy Doemel, Senior
Advancement Officer who helped set up the initial program. "It looks
like a course in that it has a syllabus, homework, class requirements,
attendance policies and faculty at the helm. But it doesn’t receive
credit because it’s a summer experience and we don’t give credit for
summer."

The program is held on campus with housing provided for the students.
Students prepare a business plan to present to a panel of experts and
spend two weeks in a local business completing a specific
business-related project.

"While not for credit, this will be an important piece of students’
resume and work experience," Lucius Hamilton said. Hamilton is Wabash
College’s Alumni Career Officer.

"I can not over stress the importance of our alumni in making this
immersion work," Hamilton said. "We are only in the second year of this
program and consequently have a lot of students left to impact."

Jon Gard participated in last summer’s first Business Immersion
Experience.

"As Wabash teaches you to think critically, this program teaches you to
approach and think about business situations and problems critically
through a variety of case studies," the Wabash senior said. "Creating
our own businesses through writing a business plan opened up my eyes to
how complex the business world really is and what to consider when
thinking about entrepreneurship."

And it’s a varied approach to business which gives the program its
unique feel.

"It is team taught by an interesting combination of faculty, staff,
alumni and townspeople who are running small businesses," Doemel said.
"Students will learn all about how entrepreneurs think, how they finance
new businesses, how to market ideas, the broad strokes of the legal
responsibilities of a business owner, the accounting, and many other
aspects of starting a business."

Students may apply until March 1. Even though there is no class credit,
students do receive a $2,000 stipend for the eight weeks.

"The lack of credit is no problem as the program is paid; more
importantly, the experienced gained was one of the unique and attractive
things employers looked at when I was looking for a job after Wabash,"
Gard said.

"Essentially, this program is empowering; it makes you realize that
owning your own company is challenging, but still very possible."

Upon graduation Gard will join Lehman Brothers, New York, as an
investment banking analyst.

In photo: From left, Kaizad Daruwala '07, Tim Dodge '07, and
Jefferson Crew '05 make their business presentation. On homepage: Town &
Country owner Tom Harmon discusses his business with John Meara '07.